|
I see you as you are; I see you're transparent
I got to go on a ******** journey to MDI Hospital in Bar Harbor. I worked out in the morning, and we were on the road at ten. It's a three hour drive, we (mum, J, and I) stayed for about an hour and a half, visited the Grindles, then went back home and made it back around ten, when I collapsed and didn't wake up once.
What can I say? Whatever I do, I'm going to sound like the regular cruel, heartless b***h I am. So read with caution:
When I tell people my grandma's dying (who currently only entail Prez and Shelb) they say they're sorry. Which is considerate, I guess. But when I told Prez that I didn't like her, he looked at me like he didn't understand. Like it was just some shallow feeling because I didn't get pampered enough on holidays or something. Since I'm probably never going to write about her again (save for her deathday) I guess I should explain.
I do not like my dad's side of the family. For the most part, they are mean and spiteful people who tear each other down because they are afraid of being alone and so need to drag people into the pit that they're wallowing in to feel needed. At least, my aunt and grandma do. My uncle's different, but they tried to do this to him after Jackie (his wife) died last summer. Instead he turned his back to them, stopped telling them when he came home from his voyages, stopped paying off grandma with every single one of his checks, and got a girlfriend who he said he wouldn't marry. Dad and Audrey and grandma were furious with him. My mom and I were so happy he finally got a backbone to stand up to them, that he wouldn't be their lapdog anymore.
But that's just one thing. The thing that really pisses me off is how they treated dad. He was always beaten with shoes and belts and the vacuum cleaner, anything grandma could get her hands on and keep up without tiring. He always had a list of chores to do when he got home every day, his mom tried to disown him when he got his first motorcycle in highschool. The only reason they didn't was because his dad (who I've never met; died of pancreatic cancer when dad was in college) was happy that he got an American bike and not a Japanese one. And yet, we come up for holidays and everything because dad's said he's let go of his hate and forgiven her.
Now, I'm a pretty tolerant person. I can forgive pretty easily. But I will never forgive that Gorgon. Or my aunt, who's still alone and just as petty as her.
Jenny and I were always treated differently. It irked me that grandma always gave Jenny less money than me for holidays and birthdays. Mum said that when we were kids I pointed out that, "Grandma, you gave her less" she wanted to kiss me. Grandma got flustered (well, if "flustered" can apply to her) and evened it out.
And if you still don't believe me on the whole "Gorgon" thing, mom said the first time she met grandma, she said that my dad was a mistake and should have gotten an abortion. Lovely.
Look at me, you creep.
Straight in the eyes.
I won't let you leave.
Over my dead body;
Maybe yours too.
Read between the lines;
And see my middle fingers in disguise.
Oooh; wrote down every lie.
Oooh; there's nothing left to hide.
This hospital was different than Jackie's. A little warmer. It smelled like disinfectant and electric blankets and death. Forgive me for not feeling anything particularly when I saw her lying on the bed as pale as paper and not doing much except for blinking.
They thought she might have stomach cancer because of all the symptoms. But she's too old and fat to get an operation, so it's not like it matters. She didn't talk much. I didn't much care.
The only real time I was interested in what she was saying was when mom was talking about Christmas and grandma says, "Don't get me anything. I can't have what I want." I really wanted to know what that something was. I should have asked, I WANTED to ask, but I guess the context wasn't right. Maybe I'll ask mom tomorrow. I'm thinking it's some regret or a wish for more time, the regular crap.
Uncle Bernie was there, who talked about his milk truck incidents when he was younger. I've only seen him maybe twenty times ever, so I couldn't observe any signs of denial in him. My dad, however, was different.
He was regressing. It's when you revert to a younger age as a kind of denial. He was gesturing with his hands and laughing a lot. He was definitely regressing. I find it odd how I could diagnose it so calmly. I could tell Jenny was uncomfortable. She was with Jackie, too. I don't understand how I can disconnect myself so much. Maybe it was my own tactic of denial so that I wouldn't come out raving and screaming at her. I used to be able to tolerate her (before I could understand the drive behind her actions), but by now I couldn't stand her. It wasn't like I was happy she was there, but I didn't understand why they had all, until the past few days, been trying so desperately to find the reason behind her symptoms. She's old. She's in her eighties. She's supposed to die like everyone else.
By this time, they had her on a morphine drip. Do you guys know what that means? Maybe not..I only know because Jackie had one. Morphine is highly addictive and the body gets used to it quickly. They put you on a drip when you're going to die.
Then when we were getting ready to leave she opens her mouth for the third time we've been there and starts rambling about how we should cherish each other and about the family rings and how she was hard on dad but it was to make him a better man and that he knows he deserved it and then all this rambling about how her parents used to beat her, blah blah blah. My ears stopped listening. Just stopped. I smiled through the goodbyes and was safe in my hardened, walnut heart.
Really. Such a cute story, grandma. I'm so glad I'm going to remember your quaint stories of child abuse as your parting words for the rest of my life. Really. Thanks.
My fondest memory of Dot Fogg was me as a child, on my knees, cleaning her feet with a toothbrush. I smiled through it because I was a good kid and wanted my grandma to like me, even though I was getting nauseous and Jenny was hiding upstairs so she wouldn't have to do chores, either. After this fiasco, my mum didn't speak to dad until he told grandma that we couldn't do chores anymore.
The best part of the trip was us driving away from the hospital and back through Bar Harbor, which is an amazing town. Every house is huge, a mansion. It used to be a Richy Rich town, and now they're all renovated and rented out to tourists. Shops line the streets. Mum told me about this Jackson lab thing where you work for them in an internship for the summer and they pay for room and board, and that was all I could think about after. I didn't care if I missed summer soccer, I just wanted to go to stay in Beautiful Bar Harbor and forget this shitty life here that has permanently flat-lined and DO something.
Keep your head down
Until I tell you to speak
You're not giving me the run around
When you fall back
Unto my coffin
No, you should've stayed out of my way
Do not test me
'Cause I'm the ******** king of the world
Get on you knees
I'm the ******** king of the world
Do as I please
|
